Arkansas Blog

Who likes government health care?

The House minority in Congress is pretty limited in power, but Republicans always managed to gin up attention with gimmicks. Now it's the Democrats' turn. They forced a vote yesterday to require new members of the House to announce if they'd be taking the government health care plan. Republicans, naturally, voted down being required to demonstrate how many of them think government health care is just dandy for them, if not for others.

And, naturally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took note of the new Republicans, such as Little Rock's Tim Griffin, who closed ranks to shroud the lovers of government health care in secrecy. Polling shows GOP voters believe that those who campaigned against health care legislation should decline government health care. Only a handful of Republicans have said they'd do that, none of them from Arkansas. Said the DCCC:

“In one of the first votes, Representative Tim Griffin hypocritically chose to hide from his constituents the government funded health care that Members of Congress receive, even though Griffin campaigned against government-funded health care and has pledged to repeal it,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Some Members have honored their pledge by refusing their congressional health care benefits, but Representative Tim Griffin’s vote makes clear that he will be the worst kind of hypocrite — one who looks out for themselves instead of their constituents.”